A Libertarian View On That South Carolina Student Assault: Property Rights, Valid Contracts, and Legitimate Authority

On October 26, 2015, Ben Fields, a sheriff’s deputy in South Carolina and the Student Resource Officer at Spring Valley High, was summoned to a classroom. According to Niya Kenny, another student in the class, the teacher of the class had ordered a student to put away her cell phone, and when the student refused, the teacher had ordered the student to leave the classroom. When the student refused to do that as well, Deputy Fields was called. It doesn’t really matter what Fields said prior to assaulting the as of yet unnamed student, although accounts seem to agree he said something to the effect of “are you going to come with me, or am I going to make you?”

Shortly after he finishes speaking, the deputy grabs the student’s arm. She resists, at which point he puts his arm around her neck, and flips her desk over. She manages an ineffectual punch to his chest area as her desk is being flipped over. He then drags her across the classroom floor, and places her under arrest.

This is an easy issue for libertarians. Not so, it seems, for Julie Borowski, who went on Facebook to say “I see both sides of this issue,” whilst avoiding any attempt to say which she agreed with, and “The girl was asked multiple times by multiple people to leave the classroom. The teacher told her to and she refused. Then a school administration told her to and she refused. Then the police officer told her to and she refused. What should the police officer have done?”

This, coming from someone who fancies herself “Libertarian Girl.”

But like I said, this is an simple issue for libertarians. However, with stories like this, sometimes statist terms can obfuscate what the real issue is. So let’s talk about basic principles.

Private Property

The student was on school grounds at the time she was assaulted. Do the school administrators, teachers, or the student resource officer have a legitimate property claim to the school property, or can they be said to be acting for the owners of the property?

The answer? No. Government officials have no legitimate claim to school property. The property was purchased using illicitly obtained funds (taxation), therefore the property claim to anything purchased with those funds is invalid. The property is rightfully owned by those from whom it was extorted. Those owners cannot be the collective “people,” and any legitimate owner would be effectively unable to assert their claim whilst the government exercises its illegitimate claim over the property by force.

Since there exists no valid property claim to the school, then it should be considered unowned. The school is, in effect, no different than an unowned patch of wilderness with a building sitting on it. Efforts should be made to return it to its rightful owners, or their heirs, if they can be found, and if they cannot, it should be available to be homesteaded, by anyone.[1]

Since the school should rightly be considered as unowned property, no person has any right whatsoever to be giving orders concerning what others will do when they are on that property. That includes adults telling teenagers to put away their cell phones, or to move from one area of the property to another.

Valid Contracts

Even if the teacher, student, and officer were aware of the property status of the school, they could have voluntarily agreed upon a contract whereby the student agrees to abide by the rules of the classroom and obey the teacher, or have violence used against her, provided this use of violence was explicitly provided for in the contract that she voluntarily agreed to.

However, that is not possible because school attendance in South Carolina is compulsory. Neither the student, nor her guardians, could agree to such a contract voluntarily, because they are already being coerced into sending the girl to school to begin with. Since secession from the public school system altogether is illegal, it would be impossible for any contract signed within that system to be considered free of coercion. There are legal penalties for students who are truant, penalties for parents who fail to send their children to school, and there is a list of standards for parents who choose to homeschool their children, with penalties for failure to meet those standards.

There can be no valid contract between parties where one holds coercive power over the other. Thus it cannot be said that the student, in any way, agreed to her treatment.

Legitimate Authority

Do school administrators, teachers, and officers hold legitimate authority over students? If so, from whence does this authority derive?

The obvious answer here is, again, no. School administrators, teachers, and police officers are people. They are not “made of finer clay than the rest of mankind,” to borrow a phrase from Bastiat. Their authority over a student is no more valid than anyone’s, that is, not valid at all. Their appointment to government employment did not grant them any authority in addition to the authority given them by God, that is, authority over their own bodies and their valid property. The voting of an electorate did not imbue them with any legitimate authority. Neither did the bestowing of titles give them any additional authority over anyone else. Every imaginary suffusion of temporal authority is false, and invalid.

Final Thoughts

If neither the school administrator, teacher, or police officer were acting in defense of property rights, if there were no valid contracts between them and the young student, and if their authority is illegitimate, then what is left to say?

This is simply a case of an adult man attacking a girl much smaller than himself, for no good reason at all. It has since come out that this young girl recently lost her mother, and has been transferred to foster care. What she needs is all the love we can muster, not to be violently assaulted for not putting her cell phone away.

[1] For a more detailed examination of property rights, read Justice and Property Rights by Murray Rothbard.

3 comments

Even if this were private property, even if it could be argued that the girl had agreed to and was bound by a contract, there are factors which trump the “complie or die” theory of enforcement.

One of those principles is “proportionate response.” We’d be deeply shocked (I hope) if the SRO had shot the girl dead. That would clearly be an excessive reaction. Yanking a girl out of a chair and throwing her across the room is so over-the-top, so excessive, that I am shocked to read defenses of such violent actions.

Second, the “adults” – teachers, administrators, SROs – owe a duty of care to the people whom they interact with. The school cannot guarantee student safety in every case, but it surely should not make things worse. Any adult must put away the childish urge to smash people and things, and think adult thoughts about how to resolve problems with a minimum of violence.

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